Your First Time: Renewed Edition
by Color With Marker
Summary: I'm bringing back the old story from PandaFire McMango's account from 2008 about how you came to know and love RENT! Information inside.
1. Chapter 1

ATTENTION ALL RENTHEADS!

If any of you have read any of the older RENT stories, then you may have seen the pen name PandaFire McMango come up ever now and then. She has a story called "Your First Time" with chapters of many older RENTheads' tales of how they came to become obsessed with this great musical. Well, I was thinking about all of the authors nowadays, since there are quite a few. Some of the most well-known authors wrote their stories: MovieBuffStarlet, GorgeousSmile, MissxFlawless, just to name a few, and many more.

Well, how _did_ we all start loving RENT?

So I've just decided, why not start it up again? It's a new version of "Your First Time" with us newer authors to the RENT fandom. For anyone and everyone who wants to (and I really hope you do), PM me your full stories about how you came to this obsession. How did it start? Who was with you? Was there that one character that you automatically fell in love with? (I discovered that many of the older authors had fallen head-over-heels for Angel and Maureen. Did you fall for another one? I know Marker fans did!) How much has your obsession grown since that first time you saw it? Is it a five thousand twenty-five thousand six hundred-words-long message, or barely five hundred?

Send me your stories and I'll post them as shortly as I can after seeing it! I'll post my own within a week (My story is kind of long and detailed).

DanceFilmMusicAnarchyRent


	2. AZTbreak

_**This first story is from the author AZTbreak, who's the author of "class of 84".**_

* * *

My obsession with RENT started when the DVD first came out. My cousin showed it to me and at the time I was too little to know what was going on for example I thought Angel was a secret agent that was under cover. I only saw it that one time and there were two things that haunted my memory; Maureen's protest and the loft door. Every know and then i would remember those but not know what it was from. Almost three years ago my sister bought the DVD from Walmart (for $3) after a friend recommended it. She tried watching it alone and was really confused so she showed it to me and i realized this is what i watched all those years ago. I cried when I realized and now my obsession with this concerns my friends. But ever since i fell in love with it I've tried to be a better friend and be a better person. Angel is my favorite, but the whole cast has helped me through hard times. RENT is the reason why I love musicals and want to follow my dreams of moving to New York, which i at one thought was a stupid and impossible idea


	3. GiraffeGirl

_**This tale comes from GiraffeGirl, author of "Lucky".**_

* * *

I sort of knocked this together in about 10 minutes - I thought spontaneity was part of its charm! Hope it's not too drippy!

My obsession with Rent began one magical week in New York almost ten years ago. I was visiting the city as part of a school trip and had already spent some of the most memorable days I would ever have with some of the closest friends I had ever made. One of our teachers organised for us to see a Broadway show and when we were handed the tickets, I thought nothing of it – I'd never heard of this 'Rent' before and neither had my musical-crazy friend. We settled into our seats, remarking upon the unusually scaffolded scenery, and waited for the show to begin…  
Three hours later we left the theatre, humming 'I should tell you' repeatedly, actually laughing at how that particular refrain crept into every element of the show, or so it seemed. We all agreed it was odd, bizarre, confusing and overall fairly depressing.

Yet a month later my friend produced a double CD on my 17th birthday. 'Here. You keep saying you think you need to see it again – go crazy.' And oh how I did.

The CD has now taken up near permanent residence in my car. My friends roll their eyes when they get in: 'Rent again? Bad day?' Because it is 100% my go-to when I need to take myself away from whatever is happening in my life – even if it's just that I've spent nigh on twelve hours at work before coming home in order to continue work for another two to three hours. This musical sweeps me away on a wonderful journey with some of the best friends I've ever seen portrayed in a text.

When the film came out, I knew I had to buy it and I've inflicted it upon my friends, much to their stunned silence – something even The Human Centipede didn't produce!

One of the things I've always liked about Rent is that the whole story is told through the music. I'm such a fanatic for narrative, for a story well-plotted and heart-breakingly told. Rent is that to a T and it means I can always carry a story with me wherever I go – be it driving or trying desperately to mark yet another set of exercise books. I've often thought that I'd be able to audition for the musical reasonably easily having learnt almost the whole script off by heart; the only issue remaining is my complete inability to sing!

As I've got older, I've reflected more and more upon the events in the musical. Different things break my heart every time I listen to the soundtrack or see the film – most recently my obsession has been how awful being Mark would be, watching all of your friends slowly fading away to nothing and being powerless to stop it. And yet throughout it all there is there endless optimism that someday, maybe even today, things are going to get better.  
Without a doubt, my favourite character has always been Roger. He's sexy and a singer and a rockstar and everybody loves a bad boy. But more than that, he's this broken man, 'the pretty boy frontman who wasted opportunity' – who doesn't reach their mid-twenties without occasionally feeling they could have been more? His fear and brooding to me represents how many of us feel at some point.

And so three months ago I saw Rent again on a strange evening with somebody who I thought was one thing and turned out to be another. In fact, Rent helped me realise just how much he wasn't what I'd imagined – his lack of comprehension of the storyline kind of proved that for one thing! It was a wonderful evening despite the company – and I cried twice.

I don't foresee my love for Rent diminishing with time: like The Breakfast Club, St Elmo's Fire and Ghost, it has had this strange hold over me for nearly ten years. Last year I created a 'Soundtrack to my life' for a lesson – and 'La Vie Boheme' was one of my five choices, representing those heady days in New York all those years ago. In that song, I believe, lies the real message behind Rent. No, not 'no day but today' after all, but 'being an us for once instead of a them'.

After all, isn't that what we all want?


	4. DanceFilmMusicAnarchyRent

_**So, yeah, it's been a while. No one's sent me anything [boo] so I'm gonna post my long-ass story about my discovery of RENT, even though it's just over a year long. BUT if you're reading this and want to send me your story, please please please do!**_

_**P.S. Don't get mad at the beginning of my tale.**_

* * *

During most of my sophomore year of high school, there was nothing I hated absolutely more than Seasons of Love.

At my friend Andrei's Bar Mitzvah, his theater group sang it four times. I had no idea where it came from other than a musical. They must've just done or were about to put on a show. None of the other Jewish kids I hung around knew where it came from either.

I just really freaking hated it. (And to this day, Seasons of Love is still my least favorite song from RENT. I know, I'm probably going to hell for this.)

About three months later, my school was doing its first annual Broadway Benefit concert. It was wonderful. One of the actresses who played Ariel in The Little Mermaid sang Part of Your World. One of my friends played Kyle in the number Bend and Snap from Legally Blonde. Everyone rocked out to Rock of Ages. (And in the second annual concert we'd put on, they did Superboy and the Invisible Girl with one of the guys who played Gabe on Broadway!)

Then the entire select choir came out of the audience and went on stage. The rest of us were clueless. For a minute, we were all confused.

And then I heard the opening of Seasons of Love.

My best friend asked, "What's this?"

I looked at her and said, "I don't know, but I fucking hate it." And because of that night, Seasons of Love was stuck in my head for about three weeks.

During March, on my way home from a Purim carnival (Yes, those exist. I'm not joking, Jewish people are the corniest human beings on the planet. This is why Mark screened his mom's calls.) with my friend (just making up a name here) Katy, I grew bored and looked through the DVDs in the back of my friend's car. 13 Going On 30 - stupid chick-flick. Tinker Bell - belonged to her ten-year-old sister. Click - the one Adam Sandler movie I didn't enjoy. The last DVD got my attention.

RENT.

The colors on the front of the case was what I noticed first. Then it was the couples on the front. I automatically ruled out the guys in the red as a couple from how they were standing. I kind of recognized Rosario Dawson from Eagle Eye and Jesse L. Martin from Law and Order, but everyone else looked weird to me.

"You wanna borrow it?" Katy asked. "I think you'd like it."

"Maybe," I said. "Next time."

That never happened.

That May, at one of the GSA meetings, we decided to do a movie day. I wasn't there for the meeting to pick the movie, so I had no idea what was going on. I sat next to my friend (another fake name) Adam.

"What're we watching?" I asked.

"RENT," he answered. "You'll really like it."

I just nodded, vaguely remembering Katy telling me about it. Everyone assumed I would like it because I liked American Idiot. At the time, I mostly liked American Idiot because I'm obsessed with Green Day, and it's the first Broadway musical soundtrack I'd listened to, meaning it's one of the most important musicals to me. The lights were turned off and the movie started. It was played on a small television on the other side of the room, so I had trouble seeing what it was.

Then I heard Seasons of Love.

"God damn, I really hate this song," I whispered to Adam. Of course, I wasn't saying that out loud; every other gay guy in the room was singing along and cheering when two of the people on stage did their solos.

When the next song started, I went along with it. I thought it was cool how they were throwing flaming papers out the window. The rawness in the two guys' voices got to me. I gasped when the thugs chased Collins into the alley. You'll See didn't really get me interested. Suddenly, a guy in a red jacket was tapping drumsticks on a tub and trash cans. _Holy shit, he's good!_ I felt sad when he stopped. But then he went into the alley and found Collins. I wasn't able to hear his name over the chorus of _AWW!_ from every guy in the room.

"Remember him," Adam whispered to me.

"Why?"

He didn't reply.

Then I see the one guy (whose name I still didn't know) go on the roof and sing. His song and the story that was on screen with it got my attention. It didn't make any sense until I saw the words HIV on the paper in a redhead's hands. I felt a twinge of sadness. Then he goes inside, and the girl from the song Rent shows up with a candle. I kind of found her to be insensitive, especially when she said, "_Like your dead girlfriend_." In my head, all I thought was, _What a bitch. Is there any other way you can say 'I don't care'?_ I couldn't make out what was on the screen; the angle I was facing the screen at had a glare from the lights in the hallway making that entire scene difficult to see. Then I hear, "_They say that I have the best ass below Fourteenth Street. Is it true?_" I nearly laughed. I mean, who's that selfish?!

When she left, I was a little relieved. Then it was daylight. Collins comes in. The tub in his hand got my attention. Where had I seen that before? Before I get an answer, he reopens the door...

...and time froze.

All I see (for once so far in the film) is a beautiful woman in a Santa dress and zebra tights. And her voice - holy shit, I thought she was one hundred percent perfect.

"Who's she?" I asked Adam. "She's so fucking sexy-"

"That's Angel," Adam answered.

"Who?"

"Remember the guy who was helping Collins in the alley? That's him."

"What? Nuh uh! But he's-"

"A drag queen."

A common motto in my school: All the good ones are gay (or, as I usually say it, all the really attractive guys are gay and the gorgeous girls are straight).

At the end of the song, after a mysterious "Maureen" calls (like I said, I wasn't paying attention during You'll See), and Collins and Angel makes fun of Mark, whose name I'd just learned. They leave, and the guy with HIV sits at home.

Mark goes to a random lot and starts talking to Joanne about this Maureen. Soon, they're singing about her, and he's dancing like a fool. Suddenly, they're doing the freaking tango. Then she drops him and _everyone and their mom is doing the tango!_

One person stands out. A beautiful woman in a red dress, dancing with another man and woman. It automatically clicks that this is Maureen.

I realize now that I had a thing for everyone wearing red the first time I saw it.

As soon as Mark wakes up, they stop the movie because half of GSA had to leave by three. We would continue next week (we didn't). I was walking out arguing with Adam about Angel.

A slow obsession began. I needed to see the rest of the movie. I didn't know how. The night before my sixteenth birthday, I received an iTunes giftcard. The first thing I did was buy RENT and watch it that night.

Oh.

My.

God.

The obsession grew one thousand times bigger. I was mostly in love with Angel. When she died, I had to pause the movie for five minutes to cry, and then cried through the reprise of I'll Cover You, and paused again afterwards to collect myself enough to finish the movie. I wanted to take Angel and bring her home (and then make her straight so I could sleep with her). She was the last character who deserved to die. When Mimi said she saw her while she was dead, I cried yet again.

So you can imagine how I reacted to the alternate ending when Angel walks on stage and takes Collins' hand in his.

I still had issues liking Mimi. Her lines in Light My Candle made me think she was a total bitch. When she came to life at the end, the first time I watched RENT, I was actually disappointed, and screamed, "You should've died instead of Angel!" Ironically, the first time I didn't cry over Angel's death (the fifth time I watched RENT) I did cry over Mimi's near-death. And I had to admit, at the time, Out Tonight definitely turned me on.

A part of me felt bad (and will always feel bad) for Benny and Joanne. Although they play important parts in RENT, they're just sort of... there. I feel like they're there just for the sake of being there. Not much of a plotline is there for them. Now I realize that there's more for them both in the stage version, and Joanne has more appearances in the movie version, but I'll always feel like their characters are kind of fillers.

Maureen's eccentric personality and Collins' straightforward-yet-laid-back attitude towards life caught my eye. These two were the obvious troublemakers of the group. I mean, you couldn't _not_ love them! Especially their chant about anarchy. Anarchy is what defines their characters, and they have a certain thing in their voices that make me prick up my ears. Maureen can go really high, and Collins can go deep. Not to mention that they can both hold their notes for impossibly long periods in time, like during Over the Moon and the reprise of I'll Cover You. Last Halloween, I tried to convince Adam to dress up like Collins and I'd be with Maureen. Of course, he thought that they were a couple (oh, silly non-RENThead!) and said no. So my best friend and I were Mimi and Maureen.

Then there's Mark and Roger. The best friends and main characters. I could see that special connection between them from the get go. They had to be more than friends, it's too obvious in the way they act around each other. How Roger makes Mark smile when he comes to Life Support during Will I. Their hug at the end of What You Own. Mark pestering Roger before One Song Glory to take his AZT. How only Roger was allowed to touch Mark's camera, during La Vie Boheme, while when Maureen does during their New Year celebration, Mark chases her. I was new to RENT and even I caught on to the love between Mark and Roger.

Right after I watched it, I bought the Cast Selections album on iTunes and listened to it over and over. La Vie Boheme was my favorite from the beginning. It took my three times to listen to it to realize what Angel had done to Evita, because every time she came on screen, I didn't listen to the words, but just stared at her skirt.

When I watched RENT again two days later, Another Day got my attention. Why wasn't that on the album I bought? I went back on iTunes and bought that and the others songs I didn't have from the movie.

Mid-late June, I realized that all musical movies started out on Broadway, so I looked it up. At the time, the only musicals I really knew were Hairspray, Bye Bye Birdie, Chicago, and American Idiot. I learned that there were different cast members and unused songs. I saved up for another iTunes card and bought the Original Broadway Cast album. I listened to it about seven times that weekend. My favorite song wasn't La Vie Boheme anymore, but Contact. Just listening to it got me hot, especially Wilson's falsetto.

That July, while my sister was at some Jewish sleep away camp up in north New York, by the Canadian border, I asked if I could go to a Broadway show. My mom said yes. My heart was set on Book of Mormon, until I saw the price. So I narrowed it down to three: RENT off-Broadway, Memphis, or Chicago. Since Adam was coming, I asked him for an opinion. He said no to RENT because it was off-Broadway. I sighed and looked up Memphis and Chicago to see the current cast lists. For the lead in Memphis, I saw the name Adam Pascal next to Huey Calhoun.

I know that guy. Where the fuck do I know him from?

I clicked the name, and RENT popped out to me.

"Mom, we're seeing Memphis!" I shouted.

So on July 15, the three of us saw Memphis. When I saw Adam Pascal come on stage during the first number, I gripped Adam's arm so hard that there were bruises for a week. He had to pry me off five minutes later. No one in that theater cheered louder than me, and I was in the Mezzonine. During the second act, when he came on stage shirtless, Adam's arm suffered again when I squeezed the life out of it. And then again during Tear Down The House when I had the fortune of witnessing the sexy lead start stripping and walk around stage for a few scenes with no pants (but, sadly, he was wearing boxers). I was cheering and screaming during curtain call. I bought his album _Blinding Light_ before I left. On the way to and from New York, I listened to the Broadway version of RENT, and forced Adam to listen to Contact (he found it to be uncomfortable, mainly because I sang along).

As I'm typing this, I'm listening to Rhyme and Reason. I've bought Adam Pascal's albums, Anthony Rapp's albums, Idina Menzel's live album, and I've downloaded all of the songs from the 1994 NYTW version of RENT (which has some really good songs in it). I also have downloaded three songs sung by Jonathan Larson, the three WJ Theory songs, and the Chess CD. Idina and Adam's voices go together so well.

My obsession with RENT is now beyond unhealthy. There isn't a day when I haven't thought about it. I started the Fanfiction shortly after seeing Memphis, starting with I Do. Thanks to Fanfiction, I ship Marker like there's no tomorrow. After Marker, my favorite ship is Cangel (MoJo is almost a tie with it, but Angel has my heart forever and always).

I've seen all of the actors from RENT in at least one other movie or show (thanks to Youtube). My favorites are Flawless, Far From Home, Descent, and Death Proof (Tracie's character makes me die from uncontrollable laughter).

I own both DVD versions of RENT. If I'm home alone, I sing along to every song. I know every line from the movie and almost every line from the stage version. I've had the songs memorized since August.

I've converted one person to a RENThead. When I first lent her the DVD, there was a fight about whether or not Angel was a girl - me versus six people, and I knew almost exactly how they felt. I'm still working on making Adam a RENThead. Almost all of my girl friends who've watched the movie with me say "He's the cutest!" about Anthony Rapp during Seasons of Love. Their faces are priceless when I mention that Anthony leans more towards guys.

I own _Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent_. I've read it three times and I'm contemplating buying the audiobook. I mean, come on, tell me that listening to Anthony Rapp reading his own sex scenes would not be the hottest thing ever. I had the musical CD downloaded the hour it was released. I began crying during the first two lines of the first song (yes, I'm pathetic).

My username is DanceFilmMusicAnarchyRent, and I'm a RENTaholic.


End file.
